Burundians Responding Against Violence & Inequality (BRAVI) QUARTERLY REPORT/PROGRESS REPORT July 1st- September 30th 2016

The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is implemented by EngenderHealth. The project's objectives are to strengthen the health sector response, promote awareness and use of SGBV services, and promote gender-equitable norms in the community to prevent SGBV and support survivors. Despite the unstable security situation in Bujumbura and Ngozi, the intervention province, the project has made significant progress in the last quarter of Project Year 2. Under the health sector response objective (IR1), trainings of health providers started in Q4 and 181 health providers, including doctors and nurses from 60 health facilities, were trained and their skills improved in SGBV services provision. The developed SGBV training package has been officially validated as a SGBV training guide for health providers to be used at the national level in Burundi. In addition, the project has made progress in promoting awareness and use of SGBV services (IR2). Community leaders reported having accompanied 32 victims of sexual violence and 78 victims of physical violence for SGBV services during the period of March to September 2016. Fifty-six victims of sexual violence and 60 victims of physical violence were assisted by health providers in 41 structures visited during the same period. Under the objective of promoting gender-equitable norms in the community (IR3), 49 MAP group education training participants completed two training sessions. Pre- and post-training results show an increase in knowledge of the relationship between sexual gender norms and HIV spreading. Training participants' opinions on test statements in regard to HIV have positively changed at an average of 100%. In this reporting period, the BRAVI project achieved 229 trained men who had the opportunity to understand and question existing gender norms and reflect on the impact of those norms on their lives and communities. The project has also set up a gender database and data collection system, and the national GBV strategy planning previously planned by the Ministry of Human Rights, Social Affairs, and Gender (MHRSAG) is still ongoing. The process to hire consultants to lead the process has started. The lack of these two important tools, SGBV programming and stakeholders' coordination meetings at the national, provincial, and communal level, as best spaces for SGBV data sharing and analysis for impactful strategies, is a challenge that the project is working to address. The project's activities and accomplishments in the last quarter of Project Year 2 demonstrate its commitment to improving SGBV prevention and response efforts in Burundi. The project's progress in strengthening the health sector response, promoting awareness and use of SGBV services, and promoting gender-equitable norms in the community is a significant step towards achieving its objectives.